Substitute for Soy Sauce

Oyster Sauce Substitute

Oyster sauce forms one of the most important ingredients in traditional Chinese, Thai and Cambodian cooking. It imparts a wonderful aroma and flavor to any dish and enhances the taste. In olden times, oyster sauce used to be prepared by reducing oyster broth. Oyster broth was allowed to boil until it turned viscous brown in color.

Nowadays, readymade sauce comes with certain additives such as caramel color, starch, even extracts of oyster, and also preservatives. One can even have the option of vegetarian oyster sauce that is mainly prepared using mushrooms. The sauces are such a great hit that one cannot think of preparing stirred fried noodles and vegetables without an addition of it. There are many people who even use it as a topping. Some people may not like the tastes of oyster. For them, oyster sauce substitutes are also available.

Dishes that are prepared with the sauce give away certain aroma and flavor that is unique to it. Therefore, preparing the same dishes without the sauce is useless. However, one can add some suitable substitutes that can keep flavor to some extent. Soy sauce is one of the major alternatives that is used by many. It not only gives the same color, but also produces almost the same flavor. Fish sauce is another great substitute. For those who prefer vegetarian varieties, they can replace oyster sauce with mushroom sauce. To prepare mushroom sauce all you need to do is boil one cube of mushroom broth in half cup of water until the mixture condenses to a rich brown color.